The present invention relates to telematics and, more particularly, vehicular telematics.
Telematics is the combination of telecommunications and information systems, often in the context of vehicles. Vehicular telematic systems involve services such as roadside assistance, automatic crash notification to a central facility, in-car entertainment, in-car computing and navigation. A typical telematics system includes vehicle systems such as airbags, door locks, vehicle engine and a car radio connected to and capable of sending and/or receiving telematic messages over a data bus in the vehicle, commonly known as a vehicle bus. Other devices such as a wireless transceiver in communication with a terrestrial network, a navigation system and a user interface such as user display and input device and/or audio interface such as a speech recognition interface may also be present. The ability of these devices to intercommunicate makes telematic services possible. For example, if the vehicle is involved in an accident that causes the airbag to deploy, the telematics system can be designed to detect a telematic message generated by the airbag signifying the deployment of the airbag and transmit a message using the wireless transceiver to a terrestrial network, reporting that the vehicle has been in an accident. The system can further be designed to receive an audio message from the terrestrial network such as “paramedics are on the way”, mute the car radio and broadcast the message over the car radio's speaker system.
Other possible services include in-vehicle navigation. A vehicle operator can input a desired destination using a user interface such as a voice recognition system or a personal digital assistant or similar device capable of accepting user input. The user interface communicates the desired location along with the vehicle's current location as reported by a Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna in the vehicle to a terrestrial network via a wireless transceiver. A trip route computer attached to the terrestrial network receives the message and computes an efficient route or trip sequence to the desired destination using methods well known to one skilled in the art. The computer then relays the computed route or trip sequence via the terrestrial network to a wireless transceiver in communication with the vehicle's wireless transceiver. The message is then passed to a navigation system capable of tracking the vehicle's progress along the route and alerting the vehicle operator when a change in direction is required.
Previous telematics systems employ proprietary communications techniques to communicate messages between telematic devices. As a result, new developments in telematic device hardware or services make prior telematic communication protocols obsolete and make upgrading of telematic systems in vehicles to incorporate the new developments difficult or impossible.